


Memorialized

by Lenny9987



Series: Lenny's Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [46]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 16:10:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15644268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenny9987/pseuds/Lenny9987
Summary: I was thinking of a prompt about the US holiday Memorial Day. Claire in Boston experiencing her first memorial day parade and thinking of Jamie the soldier.





	Memorialized

Claire wasn’t sure what to expect as she bundled Brianna into a sweater and fought to put a hat on the squirming baby’s head. It was overcast and a little chilly but every morning for the past week had started that way and then by noon it was as if spring had been beaten into submission by summer. She tucked the stuffed rabbit into the pram beside Brianna and waited for Frank at the door.

“Did anyone at work tell you what to expect?” she asked when he appeared adjusting his hat and checking his tie in the mirror above the decorative table.

“It’s a parade,” he said, a shrug in his voice. “I suppose there will be marching and waving to the crowd and the other things that go with a parade.”

The press of people as they approached the planned route meant fighting with the pram and abandoning all hope of a space close to the street. Frank managed to find a spot a little further back up a side street with enough of an incline they could see over everyone else’s heads.

Loud, boisterous music from a marching band announced the parade’s arrival a short time later and Claire pulled Brianna from the pram, holding her so she might see the colorful river of marchers as they passed by.

They were young and their instruments glinted sporadically as the sun battled the clouds to get its own peek at the parade.

Behind the band were several lines of active duty soldiers, muskets poised on their shoulders, followed by long rows of veterans.

The war had been over for years now—at least, the last war. Some of the veterans were older than that, veterans from the Great War and some even older still. Claire wasn’t confident enough in her American history to guess which wars those men had fought in. Some smiled and waved while others stood at attention, faces forward as if they were marching for inspection.

The crowd cheered them on enthusiastically. As only a populace who had been a step removed from the warfare itself could be. There had only been one direct attack on America and its citizens during long course the war, and it had been a long way from Boston.

Claire continued to silently muse on the American crowd before her—to speculate how differently such a display would be received in England—when an unexpected sound caught her attention and made her grip Brianna tight enough for the baby to start fussing.

Shushing and rocking her against her shoulder, Claire strained to see the approaching line emerging from behind a tree that obscured their view.

A line of bagpipers marched behind the veterans.

Tears pricked her eyes as she watched, unblinking.

There was a tall man toward the middle of the line. She couldn’t make him out too well from so far away. But he seemed to be a step or two out of sync from the others, his kilt swaying in a different rhythm and giving him an awkward and unpracticed appearance. Like that wasn’t his place.

She knew it wasn’t Jamie. She knew that the bagpipers were probably Irish rather than Scottish. She knew that Jamie was gone.

But she held his child in her arms, Brianna’s forehead pressed against her neck and her drool-covered fingers clinging to her collar. She held Jamie’s child in her arms and his memory in her heart.

 _Rest easy, Soldier_ , she prayed silently.


End file.
